Low chill apples in Toowoomba

3 responses

EastTmba starts with ... How would the tropical apple trees tolerate a cooler climate? Daley’s advertise that the Tropical Anna and the Tropic Sweet apple trees cross pollinate and both tolerate frosts. Would these trees produce fruit well in East Toowoomba? Toowoomba is categorised as high chill with approximately 752 winter chill hours.

The danger of planting low chill deciduous trees in high chill areas is they might be damage or killed by the cold or frost because they might break dormancy too soon.

Why? During summer deciduous trees develop their vegetative and fruit buds and when the cool weather approaches they go dormant which will protect the buds from the cold weather. Once they have accumulated their expected chill hours they will break dormancy and begin to grow flower and leaf buds.

In the case of a low chill apple in a high chill area, the tree might break dormancy too soon because it has already accumulated the chill hours required for that cultivar even though the weather hasn't warmed up enough yet for it to thrive normally and as a consequence it can be damaged by the still prevailing cold weather.

Both Anna and Dorset apples are progenies of the famous golden delicious apple cv which is considered medium to high chill cv (700 chill hrs). So you might think that they (anna and dorset) might survive in a high chill environment like their famous parent.

I wouldn't want to discourage you to plant both low chill varieties in your area. Sometimes we need to push the boundaries to learn and gain something from the valuable experience for others to follow. Again, I would leave that decision to you.

EastTmba says... Thank you Fruitylicious, I greatly appreciate your valued information. I think I will attempt to plant only the high chill varieties as unfortunately I don't have enough room in my garden to experiment.